market why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's culture the no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser report on. its wealthy americans who put the bill president obama signs the stop gap and the want to raise their taxes as part of the deal to avoid plunging off the fiscal cliff. back to the states military marketing machine has its eyes on the asia pacific to try and cement its influence and make billions of dollars from its allies. that's why the church of england needs a break. as it's found increasingly out of touch by britain's population with calls to strip it centuries old hours.

on air and online from our studios in moscow this is r.t. . president obama is to sign the law creasing taxes on the wealthy americans the deal was passed by congress after months of political bickering to avoid the fiscal cliff and the threat of a destructive recession it was rushed through on tuesday night before the financial markets reopened after the new year holiday less than twenty four hours after getting senate approval the move prevents deep spending cuts and middle class tax hikes which technically took effect at midnight on charlie the first with a compromise increases taxes on household incomes over four hundred fifty thousand dollars and delay spending cuts for two months some economists see it as being of little help to revive america. they really leave to really big question that they will have to attack caught in the. one or two months time the number one priority

will be did get silly. the us gov the government already wished desailly of sixteen point three trillion us fellows and they are using the. tricks to get over to govern us government over for two months but in february they have nowhere to go they have to go back to the congress a request. that they're sealing and the other one is the long term solution would be budget deficit the fiscal deficit is running to one trillion dollars a year because tax increases spending because the problem is only reduce the deficit by something like two hundred billion dollars it's way short the government the us government have to cut the deficit to zero or actually to

a surplus in order to pay off the huge debt. one area where america is likely to rake in a few more dollars is next year's arms sales and the bonanza is most likely to come from pushing weapons in asia pacific we have analysis on that later in the program . new country taking charge of europe's revolving presidency is promising to secure economic stability that country is ireland one of the bailed out nations the second duty on to its own debt crisis a financial analyst robert goulet told me it may prove too bigger task for doubling . one of the key challenges facing many countries in europe is of course the economic difficulties and ireland is of course rigidly sticking to the austerity drive which the european union wants which it mandating arland to do it's effectively running its budget policies in many different areas amount of money that it can be can spend to deal with the deficit but of course arlen's medicine

that they're taking and partly suffering from but they're getting on with it isn't really vied for the rest of europe so if they're going to be driving forward the agenda in the european union for the next six months that's not the. economic problems but let me ask you this i mean this coming year twenty thirty in the e.u. has come up with something called the european year of citizens to be highlight the rights people have because they're in the e.u. what do you make of that one of the key people should have is a via to elect their own government and for that to actually make a real difference but of course with the european union power has become too centralized amongst the institutions in brussels and that just takes away power from ordinary citizens so the european union can tell us why it's that we have but of course we don't actually have the violet to make a real difference to the elections because far too many decisions now are made at the supranational level major decisions being made in brussels away from the

citizens whether they be the citizens of britain or spain or greece for that matter ok there will be restored but were there any success stories in twenty twelve must have been something when after all the countries predicted to have collapsed by now are still surviving. well course unemployment. that for the states within the euro zone that's very alarming and their economic problems will not be resolved until of course it's recognize the you know the single currency is the wrong carbon c for these countries really we need to have a back of powers away from brussels to all the different member states and of course britain should of course have its own referendum on our membership as well and have our own say but it needs to be recognised that the european union is of course failing economically so it still is still there it still exists but the price of people are paying is of course no economic growth and of course massively high unemployment which is now reaching alarming proportions for many different

eurozone states the church of england has defined the u.k. and its laws for centuries but its privileges now appear to far outweigh its place among british society in the past decade the number of people who consider themselves christian has dropped by more than four million twenty boyko reports now on whether it's time for today's religious mix to get more recognition. one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world with one official state religion to some it's a paradox i think any institute any faith institution like the church is going to have some potential threats on the horizon and those threats on the horizon are basically around its relevance to communities in general other faiths are significantly growing in their population but the voice in a social and political level so it's really important to have a plurality of opinion rather than just focus on one institution as being

reflective of the nation yet the national church has twenty six years on the elected members in the house of lords the upper house of britain's parliament and it enjoys financial privileges courtesy of the u.k. taxpayer by the church's own admission the number of people coming through the doors of this and every other church in england has hauled over the past forty years the bracing report even warns that in the longer term the established religion faces fading away to virtual embellishments twenty anglican churches just like this one being closed down for worship each year entrepreneurial property developers a snapping them up and converting them to luxury housing or even light clubs while the number of church goers in the u.k. continues to fall some one hundred thousand britons have converted to islam over the past decade three quarters of those white women as you know broaden my

knowledge about islam and compared with christianity i must tell you i followed more logical you know it just resonates with me i like what the prince of wales but he wants to be if ever he becomes king he wants to be the leader of faith of all faiths that i think is a wonderful statement because certainly our society here in britain is very multi call. very multi-faith so everybody should be included while other faiths enjoy popularity the church of england says recent rejection of women bishops and disapproval of gay marriage has reignited the age old debate on the separation of church and state people feel alienated if they're not part of that church and so few people are because only two percent go to church on a normal sunday so that's why we must i think make sure the church is disestablished in the twenty six bishops that votes in the house of lords the

only country in the world to have a parliament where they have the right to do that should be extinguished britain now has one of the lowest rates of church attendance in europe there is a rule. in terms of religious opinions there is and that will grow and that future may actually become wider as time goes on and so i guess what we have today is is the church effectively being relevant to certain parts of this country despite centuries of tradition some question what will be left of the church of england in fifty years time though the statistics are very clear very clear almost disappeared with something i think the twenty fifty figures are one hundred thousand people in the pews on an average sunday out of a population of sixty million that's miniscule but the privileges and political

influence afforded to it are far from trivial and that's what's fuelling the calls of those who say that it's fairer to separate the church from the state party boy r t london. police in bahrain have used tear gas on anti-government demonstrators as a gulf nation approaches the to me a mug since the start of the rest them here to us a song where the opposition movement could be heading next but later in the program . gaza struggling farmers saw turning to rooftop crops their land is often in the line of fire with israel so they're having to get creative with their harvest as we report later.

for. the motion would be so much brighter if you move about some move from funds to impressions. whose friends don't talk t.v. dot com. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture.

welcome back more well these shoes for you know place in by. rain have used tear gas in clashes with anti-government protesters who have taken to the streets once again the demonstrators are calling for a transition to a democratically elected government and better rights for the country's majority well let's get more now on this with asthma darwish from the european bahraini organization for human rights thanks for joining us here on r.t. today how likely is it that protesters will get what they want and when you come to reflect on the human rights situation in bahrain we can see that the general situation is very bad and yet it is worse to me by the practices of violence used by the authorities in bahrain and the peace that brought the stories

who are demanding freedom and peace and pro-democracy. and what we've seen in internet video which is emerged showing a child hit by a tear gas canister joining a crackdown with police similar ignoring the young victim that has this conflict become so routine that no one in charge is even taking notice anymore. well security forces who are working for the ministry of interior and they are practicing and to why intends to avoid nations to human rights when confronting with pro-democracy protests and behaving as you said yesterday and protestants and took place in many different villages and areas around behaving and all of them all of them got a. crack they were cracked down by that by the security forces and behaving who are. not by me and they are working on an end of any

super interior and they were brought from different countries for in countries like pakistan and jordan and syria and yesterday in the village where i live and sit it out it was tear gas excessive you by security forces and i could see security forces running down the streets by my house and shooting randomly inside their houses either by using the gun or manual and like throwing tear gas canisters by hand into the houses so quite a shocking situation as you describe them to policeman was sentenced to seven years in prison for beating and anti-government demonstrators junior on rest and twenty eleven we've also seen the authorities cut the jail time for some activists so is the kingdom softening its stance. well actually the authorities are not taking. taking in consideration to to improve the human rights

situation and behavior we see more by and nations by time since two thousand and eleven and now we are in two thousand and thirteen and yesterday was just the beginning of the year and we could see that excessive use of violence and. to end tension and of the off the authorities to enhance the situation or to have really put it to kill reform and in the ground. what we've seen the rise i mean we have a more radical youth oriented protest movement in bahrain but could the violent methods prove to be a serious roadblock for any kind of dialogue between the government and the opposition actually the ra i think the youth came off. being the movement was completely peace said but after witnessing the west that was during and position to or this is this it to asian and behaving or there have been action in bahrain it is unlike to what is what they are claiming like they are in

kargil human rights in different countries arab countries but when it comes to behave they use double standards so the protesters here it by having although they are those radical protestors they are the minority and not the majority but they are using such methods to prevent that why didn't security forces from entering there they are at their religious and attacking on armed civilians and children like we witnessed and a big deal and off of the four year old child being attacked by security forces with here gas canisters ok i asked my dollars solve european or par or any organization for human rights so i thank you for joining us here naughty. well top u.s. arms makers are forecasting a significant rise in sales for the coming year after a pretty solid twenty twelve washington has been shifting its sights towards asia looking to arm it sounds eyes who are in neighboring north korea and china

independent journalist james corbett says the u.s. is creating a pretext to make billions from arms sales which could backfire through geopolitical tensions. what we can see is really just a return to a very old imperial strategy building up boogie men in order to. create the sales to combat those boogey men so it's a very old strategy it was identified by need by president eisenhower in his farewell address in one thousand nine hundred sixty when he talked about the military industrial complex and we here we are half a century later with the exact same strategy at play and before it was the communists then there was the terrorist threat and now there's china and that threat i think it creates a situation where the economics may be what's driving this it would give it towards asia pacific but that in turn creates geopolitical realities so that for example china now sees all of these arms sales going to korea and taiwan and japan and some of the u.s. allies in the region and they respond with

a military armaments of their own so it's a kind of self-perpetuating. prophecy that fulfills itself by the economics of the situations asian has its eye on what's happening with taiwan and the effort to retrofit the f. sixteen fleet of taiwan but also the japanese x. ray to expand radar for example that just recently has is being expanded and worked on i think has to be seen as a threat by china as well so i think definitely we're going to see an increase in tensions and that will probably create more situations like we saw in the past year with you in dispute between japan and china. well the asia pacific is likely to take a good share of the limelight in twenty thirty and they turn out he's cross-talk people avails experts explain why the. primary problem that the united states sees with china is that its economy is too strong and that it's building up its military so these are two things that the united states prides itself on i'd giant military and a big economy right what that weather what

a big economy in china reflects is number one a lot of hundreds of thousands of people being lifted out of poverty. china but also means help for the united states because trade is obviously mutually beneficial and so trade in international borders being a little more open to trade this is a good thing the united states in washington wants to paint it as a bad thing they're playing a very sort of great game geo politicking in asia and because china is having success they're moving to try and contain china so that means backing a lot of unscrupulous people in asia pacific surging military forces their naval forces there this is all very bad it's an interesting way of the united states turning something positive into something very terrible and it makes it easy for people to go chinese our next greatest enemy. will be our latest edition of crosstalk is on air in about ten minutes time here

knotty. of the world's news now for you this hour to syria where activists report that up to seventy people have been killed and many others injured in an airstrike the gas station to my school suburbs earlier in the day rebels attacked a military airfield in the country's northwest major and then put in i suppose highway firing machine guns and mortars at helicopters the violence is despite a stark warning from the top international point of syria the country places with. motorcycle bomb has gone off near a crowded park in pakistan southern city of karachi killing at least four people and wounding dozens of others police say the explosion occurred when a political rally of the city's dominant party passed by no one has yet admitted carrying out the attack. ads of women protesters in india have marched in

silence in the capital to mourn the twenty three year old female victim of a brutal gang rape on a bus a student later died of her injuries lighting a fierce public response. growing calls for her attackers to face the death penalty six men will be formally charged on thursday good one of the suspects can't be executed if convicted because he's under eighteen. but as well and president hugo chavez is in a state of consciousness after undergoing another cancer operation that's according to the vice president nicolas maduro stressed leaders condition remains delicate and rejected earlier rumors that chavez was in a coma or in hospital cuba the president's inauguration sheffield for the tenth of january. israel is easing restrictions to allow building materials into gaza but the blockade still severely affects those who live there even farmers had to leave their land in the buffer zones to grow food on rooftops instead and this

point to sneer reports recent assault on gaza leave some fearing they may not see their next harvest. there's not a lot of greenery in gaza at least not in the places you'd expect to find it like a bow her thumbs farm which since the israel gaza war four years ago has laid a barren and deserted. look to you again or had a very nice plantation a lot of visitors came to see it also students from the farming school used to come and study at my place. but rockets from israel raining down on one of the most densely populated spots on earth meant i will have needed to find another place where he could grow his crops and so he looked towards his own home and upwards that. i needed no alternative so i made this plantation on the roof and started working again. creates a lot of things if he has time and energy i can make fifty thousand suppling from

these women's meters on the roof. it's an idea that's taken root in farms along the gaza israel border where much of the agriculture has been repeatedly destroyed by the israeli army many farmers are unable to access the land because of the buffer zone that's one of at least a third of gaza's farmland your. today there is no space to have a farm in gaza it is very crowded everybody is building new houses where i stand now used to be a plantation for oranges and lemons and if you look at it now you see buildings. fall out of five people in gaza are dependent on food aid homegrown food projects like rooftop gardens can help combat malnutrition and severe poverty by allowing farmers to sell their produce now anyone can do it i work with my husband and my daughters till midnight that after a lot of farming should be on the ground but we heard that we can plant in volcanic

rock on our roofs so i tried it. farmers grow wheat barley and a variety of fruits and nuts on these rooftops they also raise rabbits and chickens showing how a little ingenuity can go a long way ask anyone in israel and gaza whether they think the situation is stable and i'll tell you it's only a matter of time before the next israel gaza showdown there might be a cease fire in place between the two sides but no one believes it will hold least of all the gaza farmers who are always the first in the line of fire policy r.t. on the israel gaza border. but over in the west bank dozens of palestinians have been wounded after they rounded on israeli troops who were disguised as vegetable sellers during a botched mission to capture suspected militants we get the details on our website . and also online has the vatican lost it's very interesting its staff workers are given swipe cards to track them moves around papal premises waiting for

a stream of virus in the x. . it seems there's a price to pay for free love after all american health officials warn there's a silent epidemic stalking the baby boomers of the sixty's but in a culture never reports on the call in california to get checked for deadly hepatitis c. . california one the center of the hippie revolution and melting pot of music rock sound sexual freedom we did drugs but we didn't think about it there was no process because everybody was doing there is dean mitchell is a baby boomer born during the pos world war two years nineteen the forty six and nine hundred sixty five his generation now is paying for that lifestyle a life of things drugs and rock'n'roll all fueled by flower power and the summer of

love they say few remember the sixty's you were intrigued there the baby boomers out of the sexual revolution may have lost some of their memories and they have the mists of time but there is one legacy of their past which is anything but harmless the centers for disease control has already named him patatas c s n and recognized health crisis according to their grannies ation current he won in thirty baby boomers are in fact it's with the virus the silent killer it can lie dormant for decades that's what happened to dean mitchell's friend who died just two months after being diagnosed with the disease they're paying for the car consequences because there are now so. they have to get medication. and it's a disease that i understand can kill you but worst of all it's not just baby boomers who are interests many could have a knowingly contract with the virus through blood transfusions screening was all

improved the aids crisis in the ninety's california is bay area has been the hardest hit with more people dying than anywhere else in the country it is also a very costly problem for the bankruptcy state costing billions of dollars. or. have we. heard. more widespread than h i v have to tide is seen kills around twelve thousand people in the u.s. after a year and with the baby boomers in the high stress group the center for disease control has called for mass screening they say they could identify almost a million people now living with the disease and save many more lives but the question remains if the present generation will listen to the question archie reporting from las angeles california. well shortly expert insight into what's

behind america's greatest interest in the asia pacific region crosstalk is off the brink. finds his day starts at five am even earlier in the winter tending to his flock of three hundred sheep in the mountains in panes of t.v. thirty five years old it wasn't the life he dreamt of having studied accounting but he dition unfamiliar duty dictated that he would take on the care of these animals after his father. he's just made camp at their winter farm stage setting up his ute judicial to fenian round tent made of diskin. back amongst his family and his job is a lonely one and tough going out in all weathers braving streams of plus to minus forty

degrees celcius says that i've used them there are certain difficulties there's not enough time for everything i'm almost alone my sister works with my mother my mother is seventy five she's very old and i miss mountains when i'm in town and i spend a lot of time here. so on the survey i simply carrying out the work that his father did and his father before him nothing has changed over many many centuries and that's half the problem it's hard work and many people don't want to come into the industry now and it's where they fit their could die out altogether but it's difficult to manage everything alone i used to have people who helped me but they were no good they didn't take care of the sheep with all their hearts they hurt the cattle. with more people leaving than coming to the countryside the region's government is having to act making the life of a herd and more attractive than promising largest subsidies for poor g's.